Chapter 4: What Miranda Found
Miranda had been going through her own records.
After our phone call the night before, she hadn't slept.
She'd gone to her filing cabinet, the one she kept in the spare room that she'd always meant to sort through and never had, and she'd pulled out every document connected to the divorce settlement from seven years ago.
"They took $22,000," she said when I called.
"I thought it was legal fees.
That's what Dad told me — that he'd arranged for a lawyer and that the cost would come out of the settlement before I received the rest.
I was so broken at the time that I just signed what he put in front of me."
"Did you ever see an invoice from the lawyer?"
"He said he'd handle it.
I trusted him."
There was a silence between us that had a shape to it.
"Miranda.
The lawyer he hired — do you have a name?"
"Hartley and Associates.
Dad said they were a family firm, that he'd used them for years."
I wrote it down.
"I've never heard of them."
"Neither had I.
But I was grateful.
I thought he was helping me."
I didn't say what I was thinking.
I let her continue.
"So I looked them up last night," Miranda said.
"Hartley and Associates dissolved in 2019.
Before that they had two complaints filed against them with the state bar.
And the founding partner — a man named Gerald Hartley — his home address in the public records is the same street as Dad's old business partner.
Three houses down."
I stopped writing.
"Say that again."
She said it again.
I sat with that for a moment.
A lawyer Dad had recommended.
A lawyer with complaints on record.
A lawyer who lived three houses from someone my father had been in business with for years.
"He chose the lawyer," I said.
"He chose the lawyer," Miranda confirmed.
"And the lawyer took $22,000 before I ever saw a cent."
"Did the lawyer actually do anything for your case?"
"I got a settlement.
But my ex-husband's attorney told me afterward that I should have received nearly double.
He said my representation had been — he used the word inadequate."
I thought about my father sitting in his chair by the window, telling me some things were better left alone.
"Miranda, I need you to get everything you have on the settlement.
Every document.
Every signature page.
Every letter."
"I already pulled it all out.
It's on my kitchen table."
"I'm coming over."
I drove to Miranda's apartment across town.
She met me at the door in her dressing gown, her hair unwashed, her eyes showing the kind of tired that comes from a night of understanding things you'd spent years not wanting to understand.
We sat at her kitchen table and went through it together.
Document by document.
Page by page.
The lawyer's fees were listed as a single line item.
No breakdown.
No itemization.
No receipt.
The signature on the authorization was Miranda's.
But the date was wrong.
"Miranda." I pointed to it.
"This is dated three days before your settlement was finalized.
You authorized the fee release before you knew the final amount."
She leaned in.
Stared at it.
"I didn't sign this on that date," she said.
"I was in the hospital on that date.
My appendix.
I was admitted the night before and didn't leave until two days after."
Her hand was flat on the table.
Not shaking.
Completely still.
"He signed it," she said.
"Or someone did.
While I was in the hospital."
I looked at the signature again.
It was close.
But Miranda's handwriting had a particular way of looping the M, a habit she'd had since childhood.
This M was flat.
"We need a solicitor," I said.
"A real one.
Not anyone Dad recommends."
Miranda nodded slowly.
Then she looked up.
"There's one more thing," she said.
"In the back of the folder.
I almost missed it."
She reached across and pulled out a single sheet.
May you like
A letter, handwritten, dated eleven years ago.
It was from Diane.
